Help Reseda Robotics Go To Worlds

$6,105
of $8,500 goal

Reseda Regents Robotics is a team formed from a Title 1, low income school, to give students the opportunity to experience the fields of science, engineering and computer programming. Reseda Regents Robotics enjoys partnering with others. We have a cultural and gender mix of students. We encourage females to lead teams and teach them to use and feel comfortable using large machines to build robots. The majority of the dedicated robotics students have gone to college for either engineering or computer related fields. This year, five of our alumni who are now working in related fields, have come back to mentor our students in the building of this year's robots. The coach is a dedicated volunteer who teaches a full load of Engineering and Physics classes at Reseda High School, and then puts hundreds of hours a year into building and improving this robotics and engineering program after school and on weekends. He is currently earning a Masters in Educational Technology, which will also help improve his robotics work. He has dedicated his life to opening the possibilities of science related fields to children who may otherwise not have the opportunity. FIRST Robotics is an expensive robotics program, due to the quality of the materials used to build robots for the competition. For the last four years we have been fund raising for our robotics program by putting on VEX robotics competitions at our school to keep our VEX robotics team going and to earn $10,000 to compete in FIRST Robotics this year. Our coach also writes for grants to keep the funding coming in for the machines, materials, and supplies for our Engineering program. The cost of FIRST registration is $5,000. The materials have cost us $10,000 to construct a robot, and another $3,000 for hotels and local transportation for the three day competition. As you can see, we are currently in debt and trying to fund raise to cover the regional competition. Now, we have won the Los Angeles Regional and need funding for our team to go to Houston, Texas for the FIRST Worlds Championship. The costs will be $4,000 to register, $3,000 for the hotel, and possibly $5,000 in transportation just for students. We are not asking for the whole amount of the costs, but we are asking for $5,500 in donations, which would greatly help to get us on our way. The money for the registration is due by the end of March. The costs of transporting the robot and materials, as well as hotel will need to be paid for by mid April. We would greatly appreciate any support you can donate to help this team. Many students come from homes that are unable to donate toward the expenses, but who contribute greatly to our team and have the skills that could lead them to a very bright future. We have seen an increase in student confidence and desire to build, design, and program robots, which has led to alumni earning degrees in science, engineering, and programming. We are experiencing alumni giving back to the community through working as engineers, mentoring students, and financially giving back to the community, in return for the opportunity that the community gave to them. We appreciate your time and interest. We would also like to invite you to view The Blue Alliance website below to view our matches and see what we can do. There are competitions all over the United States that you can visit that are free to the public. We also have a Reseda Robotics website that you can view.

We are so overwhelmed by the generosity of all of our donors. The excitement of going to Worlds is even greater without the financial stress.
We greatly appreciate the family and friends of our team members and mentors for your support in this experience. Participating in robotics opens doors for scholarships and opportunities in college that they may not otherwise have.
We want to thank those of you who have donated without knowing us, just because you believed in the cause. It means so much to us that the community is behind us.
We are now registered for Houston.
We will be working on extra parts to take with us that we found to be vulnerable due to use and exposure during the competition. We will also be shipping our robot to the competition soon, because that is part of the rules. We are unable to access our robot between competitions. One we get our paperwork for shipping and storage, it will be on its way.